Every few days, I post musings, ideas, quotes, and mini-essays on writing, painting, and the creative process. I'm a professional freelance editor, pastellist, and novelist. I believe in supporting the creativity of all of us.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

novel not quite in progress

I'm sitting in the Garden Room at Aldermarsh on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. This is one of my favorite writing spots. A desk built in to the wall. Straight ahead is the lush green half-acre of garden, to my right the alder marsh and the hammock and more lilies than I can count.

I'm here for a luxurious 8 days of writing and this is Day 2. I like it best when I come up here with a project in full steam. Then my tasks are really clear. This time I am both between projects and sitting in indecision about whether to rework novel #2 from a whodunit into a piece of literary fiction or move on to novel #3. I also have poems I want to work with, my 100-prompt project to work on, books on writing to read, books of fiction to read, lots of choices. Probably too many.

So I made a list of possibilities, including some do-very-little items. And I decided to take on writing 3-4 chapters of a new book. It might not turn into anything, and it might. I might decide to stay with it all of the retreat or consider that enough for now.

I took a prompt that I wrote on May 6 (it's actually #1 of the 100 I'm currently writing) called "Road Trip," and I started writing. I like some of what's happening a lot. At the same time, I'm not so sure. So my indecision continues to be at play and I can sit with that.